BS: The End of Science in Texas...

Subject: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 04:40 PM

A correspondent sends this link concerning recent developments in Texan-style education:

"Via the DefCon blog comes that news that Texas governor Rick Perry has appointed a creationist to head the Texas State Board of Education.

I'll give you a moment to clean off your screen. Yes, you read that right.

At first I thought, "No, not even a politician in Texas could possibly do something that dumb, that contrary to reality, that horrifying to their kids. DefCon Blog must have gotten it wrong!"

And then I did a few searches. DefCon Blog got it right. According to the Dallas Morning News:

Texas Freedom Network president Kathy Miller … noted that in 2003, Dr. McLeroy was one of four board members who voted against proposed high school biology textbooks because he felt their coverage of evolution was "too dogmatic" and did not include possible flaws in Charles Darwin's theory of how life on Earth evolved from lower forms.

That is straight out of the creationist tactics notebook. In case you're not sure, the article goes on to quote McLeroy:

"It is wrong to teach opinion as fact," he said.


Pssst! Someone needs to tell him it's also unconstitutional to teach religion as science.

Here is an Op-Ed talking about McLeroy's appointment as Board chair:

In 2001, McLeroy and a majority of the board rejected the only Advanced Placement textbook for high school environmental science because its views on global warming and other events didn't comport with the beliefs of the board majority. The book wasn't factual and was anti-American and anti-Christian, the majority claimed. Meanwhile, dozens of colleges and universities were using the textbook, including Baylor University, the nation's largest Baptist college.

In 2003, McLeroy voted against approving biology textbooks that included a full-scale scientific account of evolutionary theory.

Here is a letter McLeroy sent out to his fellow State Board of Education members:

My Personal Confession

Given all the time in the world, I don't think I could make a spider out of a rock. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim that Nothing made a spider out of a rock.

I don't think I share a common ancestor with a tree. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim as a fact that we all share a common ancestor with a tree.

Brilliant! This guy doesn't understand the most basic principles of biology, and he's going to chair the State Board of Education. And hey, if he doesn't understand something, why should it be taught at all?

Here is Don McLeroy's own website, from the Favorite Quotations section:

The belief seems to be spreading that intellectuals are no wiser as mentors, or worthier as exemplars, than the witch doctors or priests of old. I share that scepticism.

Think that one through for a moment, folks. The new head of the Texas State Board of Education is an anti-intellectual. Note: he didn't say this himself, he is quoting someone else; but it's clearly a quotation he agrees with.

You can rail all you want and complain that I write too much about anti-science in the form of religious fundamentalism, but you would be wrong. I can't write about this enough. It's a disease, a virus, and now the brains of millions of schoolchildren in Texas are at risk. Worse, Texas (along with California) has an unusually large influence on what textbooks get used in the rest of the country, because they are such a large market for the publishers. If this antiscience, anti-intellectual, anti-reality man gets to help choose what textbooks go in Texas, then you parents out there who are reading this in New Hampshire, in Wyoming, in Oregon, in Virginia — your own kids are at risk here too...."

See the graphic image at Bad Astronomy's webste.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: alanabit
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 05:06 PM

What next? Paris Hilton as Transport Minister?

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 05:14 PM

What's so tricky about making a spider out of a rock? They made a leader of a state office out of a dummy with sponge for brains.


I was offered a job in Dallas once...I turned it down. I lived in Kansas at the time.

I guess they can't make it against the law to be ignorant of basic logic and reason, but there should be SOME way to prevent them from being in charge of stuff that influences all of society.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Shakey
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 05:22 PM

Amos, he has a point, I mean what's evolution ever done for him? We need more anti-anti-science



Dennet
Hitchens
Dawkins
Harris
Grayling

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 05:29 PM

But one thing's for sure - Perry pulls his pecker with either his left or his right hand!!!....

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 05:33 PM

He does have a good point. Of course, his hat covers it well.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Cluin
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 05:48 PM

Things is gettin' stupider an' stupider...

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Wesley S
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 05:51 PM

Thanks for the info. I'll be spreading it around.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 06:05 PM

So what if he is a Cretinist?
Cretins are people too.



In the new Creationist museum in Tennesee (built as a tax dodge and money laundry by the Mega Evangelical Christ Church Association -MECCA) there is a big dinosaur in the lobby with a handsome Adam riding on its back which proves that Dinosaurs and Man share the same 6,000 years since Creation.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 06:08 PM

Well, shit.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 06:14 PM

The ignorant are everwhere.
As a student teaching in first year science labs at the University of Illinois many years ago, I was forced to deal with students belonging to something called the Newman Club, whose members were Roman Catholic creationists. 'Faith-based beliefs' are a problem everywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 06:37 PM

I do, however, want to apologize to my good, smart, kind and able friends throughout Texas, of which I have at last count four, including Jed Marum, whom I did not consult but counted anyway. Although I chose a slanderous exaggeration as the title for this thread, it was merely as a rhetorical device, intended to stir up unthinking emotions of disgust -- antipathy on a completely stimulus-response basis. But not against Texas, merely against those few mentioned in the article. I hope I can be forgiven for anyone I may have sprayed while painting with too broad a brush.

Amos

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 06:37 PM

Stupidity may be often genetic or a matter of a birth injury...etc..
Ignorance is a personal or cultural avoidance of fact and logic. It's too bad ignorance doesn't itch.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 08:57 PM

It was Texas and Indiana that wanted to legislate the value of pi to 3.00000000000000000... instead of that nasty 3.1415965....

In Indiana it never made it out of committee because a math prof from Purdue demonstrated the stupidity of the idea.

It was voted on in the Texas legislature....

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 09:06 PM

Fact is stranger than fiction...

Exhibit A thru Z: Texas...

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: fumblefingers
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 09:32 PM

Rapaire:It was Texas and Indiana that wanted to legislate the value of pi to 3.00000000000000000... instead of that nasty 3.1415965....

In Indiana it never made it out of committee because a math prof from Purdue demonstrated the stupidity of the idea.

It was voted on in the Texas legislature....

Could you please provide documentation of this?

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 10:00 PM

I get the impression that there are a lot of supporters of good music in Texas - whatever their faults may be!

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 10:19 PM

The value of pi is an old joke in legislative bodies- it has been used to fill time in filibuster sessions as have other nonsensical proposals.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 10:32 PM

Here's the Indiana story, straight from Purdue University. (I left a number out, it should have been 3.14159265....). You can look up Texas yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: fumblefingers
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 11:18 PM

How do you know "it was voted in the Texas legislature"? I don't care about Indiana because I don't live there.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 11:19 PM

I thought the Creationist Museum is in Kentucky.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 11:37 PM

Committee on canals? Committee on Temperance?
--------------------------

Texas- no record of any such vote. Mention of 'hopefully apocryphal' story here-
http://museum.utep.edu/archive/math/DDeasymath.htm
Desert Diary

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: heric
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 12:01 AM

"'I don't think I share a common ancestor with a tree. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim as a fact that we all share a common ancestor with a tree.'

Brilliant! This guy doesn't understand the most basic principles of biology, and he's going to chair the State Board of Education."

I hope the guy who wrote this article and that second paragraph doesn't teach elementary school kids or higher. Anti-Creationists can have insufficient imagination to grasp the full extent of what they think they support. If you told this guy that not only is he related to a tree, but much more closely related to a fungus, he'd probably have a conniption.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 10:07 AM

"I guess they can't make it against the law to be ignorant of basic logic and reason, but there should be SOME way to prevent them from being in charge of stuff that influences all of society."

No worries. You are watching the beginning of The Decline Nd Fall of The Second Roman Empire (USA). In China they don't tolerate this "Creationist '(Pseudo-)Science'" Crap, which is why they will eventuallyovertake the USA... and own all the USA things of any real value - allowing these idiots to still believe their blind stupidity - their children will be no threat, for they will understand nothing of any use in Real Science or Maths...

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 10:15 AM

Once they have control, they will outlaw Religion, the Only Religion is The State...

They have done it before... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 11:01 AM

So much for the Space Center in Houston. And now we know the real reason why the SCSC wasn't built.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: artbrooks
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 11:23 AM

Well, there is a healthy leavening of idiots out there, but let's not accuse Texas of being more idiotic than other places. Wasn't it Kansas that elected a state school board of creationists a few years ago(replaced now, thankfully)? And who was the anti-abortionist who our beloved leader recently appointed to a position with oversight of womens' health issues? Of course, Bushy is a Texan - sorta.

As I recall, Texas entered the Union with a proviso that it could split itself into three separate states. Maybe we should encourage them to do that, put Bubba and the rest of the nut cases in one of them (it can be the smallest, you know), and they can go their own way unencumbered by people with some awareness of the world around them.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: curmudgeon
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 11:40 AM

The Wilmot Proviso allows Texas to subdivide into five states. Imagine, if you dare, TEN senators from that new mix.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: robomatic
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 01:06 PM

Maybe instead of worrying about whether or not the Ten Commandments should be posted in the high courts and legislatures of our land, a depiction of King Canute ordering back the tide would be appropriate.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 01:11 PM

Bushy a Texan? He's a would-be Texan. Born in New Haven. New Haven, Texas? Not likely. Try New Haven, Connecticut.   The wide open spaces of Connecticut. Silver spoon. Skull and Bones. He just happens to be probably the most successful carpetbagger Texas has ever seen--successful at carpetbagging, at any rate--it seems the vast majority of Texans have bought it. Even more successful than the former holder of the title, Pappy "Pass the Biscuits, Pappy" O'Daniel--from Kansas. Too bad the Dixie Chicks didn't say "We're sorry we said the President of the United States is from Texas. He isn't. He's from Connecticut".

Not successful at anything else, except propaganda--which seems to be all you need these days--more's the pity.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 01:21 PM

Well, ya see, that there science stuff is hard and ya gotta think and stuff. Learn stuff like "cause 'n' effect" and the Second Law of Thermodynamics and decay rates and know what livers do and oxidation-reduction reactions (whatever they are) and all sorts of hard stuff. And thinkin' just ain't for a lot of folks, and their rights should be represented too.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 01:36 PM

The whole debate/discussion is sorely in need of some new definitions just for clarification.

I thought the Mike Huckabee response during the Republican debates was an interesting one. At the first debate he appeared to have answered that he doesn't believe in evolution.

In the second, he was able to clarify -- and I think his clarification defines more American's views than the discussion as seems to be framed here.

His response was that he realized in the first debate that what was really being asked was not, "do you believe in evolution?", but rather, "do you believe in God?". As he was not about to answer that he didn't believe in God, he chose to answer the implication of the question.

All hell broke loose.

He realized that he didn't answer accurately -- perhaps he was overly defensive. And so in the second debate he clarified that he didn't presume to know how creation had occurred, but that he did believe it was God-directed.

He also clearly stated that he thus didn't rule out evolution as the manner in which that creation unfolded.

Obviously there are those who believe in creation to the exclusion of evolution. But once Huckabee's clarification is given as a third alternative, suddenly those people become much smaller in number and thus, much less vocal.

And they wouldn't be vocal in the first place if there weren't a lot of zealots in the schools teaching that science -- and evolution -- disprove the existence of a god.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 05:18 PM

Actually, Darwin was not the one who first proposed the theory of evolution. Before he came along, scientists in general accepted evolution as an obvious fact based on simple observations. They saw no conflict between evolution and the existence of God.

What Darwin contributed to the theory was natural selection and this part left very little left for God to do. From that point on there was a perceived conflict between the theory of evolution and the existence of God which, as John Hardly points out, is not actually necessary.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 05:28 PM

" ... a lot of zealots in the schools teaching that science -- and evolution -- disprove the existence of a god."

Do you have reason to believe that this is actually the case, John, or are you giving yourself some rhetorical license here?

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 05:47 PM

do you actually doubt it?

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 05:58 PM

...asked another way...

Do you know any serious agnostic/atheist who doesn't believe that their god-free belief is firmly grounded in science?

I don't.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 06:06 PM

Well - kind of - but I live a long, long way from Texas, so I don't really know what goes on there - that's why I ask. But having spent many years observing the States from the north, I have seen that issues have a way getting very polarized there, and Americans, if I may generalize, do seem to have a tendency toward zealotry. I just find it hard to imagine that many teachers would go out of their way to alienate the parents of their students - as if they didn't have enough problems already ...

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Naemanson
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 06:40 PM

A long, long time ago President Johnson declared war on ignorance with a new education bill. I remember a cartoon in the paper from that time with two men with long old fashioned rifles crouching behind a rock. One of them is saying, "Ah'm igorant and Ah'd gonna stay igorant."

Guess you can't legislate education.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 06:59 PM

YEah, you know what they say...you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her read.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Grab
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 08:04 PM

Robo, it's probably off-topic, but the Canute story is that of a ruler who was sick of brown-nosers. One of his court told him he was so powerful, even the tide would obey him. So he took his court to the seaside and proved it wouldn't. I don't know the fate of the arse-licker, but I doubt it was pleasant!

If only some of our leaders had the same level of wisdom...

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: stallion
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 08:14 PM

if this wasn't real it would be hilariously funny, a bit like the part in the Monty Python and the Holy Grail when John Cleese, as a knight,gets his arms and legs cut off and still claims he can fight.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Cluin
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 08:17 PM

"Who are you, so wise in the ways of science?"

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 08:37 PM

John - We cross-posted back there - my last post was in response to your second-last, if you follow me.


"...asked another way...

Do you know any serious agnostic/atheist who doesn't believe that their god-free belief is firmly grounded in science?"


I don't see what that has to do with the question of whether there are "a lot of zealots in the schools teaching that science -- and evolution -- disprove the existence of a god". This is either happening or it isn't. I had about seven different Science teachers in the course of my elementary and secondary schooling, and I'm sure that not one of them ever mentioned how what they taught might relate to the idea of the existence of God, in any class I was in. If Science teachers in your part of the world are proselytizing for atheism, they should be reined in - but that should not mean compelling them to teach religion instead of science.

But I wonder how many of your science teachers actually consider themselves atheists?

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: heric
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 08:41 PM

I don't recall any of them doing that, but I do recall that to ninety percent or more of them (split almost equally between the US and Canada), a fact was a fact is a fact and will be a fact. They gave you the facts.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: heric
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 08:49 PM

Well, that's not quite accurate. Many of the facts from the past were wrong because people were stupider then. But now we have the right facts, children.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 09:01 PM

Yes, we are certainly lucky to be so much smarter than all our predecessors ... !

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 09:17 PM

except Zogg. The guy was a genius.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: heric
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 09:36 PM

This excerpt of John's really is fascinating:

>>>>>>>>In the second, he was able to clarify -- and I think his clarification defines more American's views than the discussion as seems to be framed here.

His response was that he realized in the first debate that what was really being asked was not, "do you believe in evolution?", but rather, "do you believe in God?". As he was not about to answer that he didn't believe in God, he chose to answer the implication of the question.

All hell broke loose.

He realized that he didn't answer accurately -- perhaps he was overly defensive. And so in the second debate he clarified that he didn't presume to know how creation had occurred, but that he did believe it was God-directed.<<<<<<<<

I don't know if this guy McELroy is a nut. I know nothing about him. But he faced a similar dilemna: "Dr. McElroy. Do you think Texas public school teachers have all the facts right or are you some kind of goddammned Christian nut? Which is it?"

The polarization here certainly does seem unnecessary and must look quite silly to anyone distanced from it. I keep waiting for it to just go away.

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 10:22 PM

Couple years ago they tore up Main Street to replace the 100 year old water lines. In doing so they found some boulders, well, lots of boulders really, some as big as cars.

The boulders were worn smooth by water, and the geologists up at the University said they were rolled along when the Lake Bonneville Flood passed this way a few years back.

No! According to the letters to the editor, these rocks were deposited by Noah's Flood and/or placed there by God to test our faith, just like all those dinosaur fossils they keep digging up. After all, the Earth was created just 6,600 years before the birth of Jesus Christ(in October, if I remember aright).

Sure wish I was as sure of things as some folks are....

Subject: RE: BS: The End of Science in Texas...
From: MaineDog
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 11:16 PM

My first wife was an editor for a large textbook publisher, back in the 1960's. She told me then that Texas used the pi = 3 value in all math books until high school, when they had to fess up to make algebra and geometry work right. When I was in elementry school, we used "about 24/7" which worked out well enough when we were learning fractions. Now that we have calculators, of course, no one learns fractions any more.
However, if you use an appropriate non-Euclidian geometry, 3.0...
might be just right. Try calculating the area of circles drawn on the surface of a sphere!
She also said that Texas had a committee of fundamentalists who passed judgement on all textbooks, and her company therefore had to publish a different set of books for Texas.

MD